Incinerate
by Socrates7727
Summary: There were rumors that there was another trigger word, one that could shut him down as easily as the others could activate him. No one really knew if it was true, except the one who created it. WinterWidow BuckyNat One-shot for now.


AN I don't own Marvel or any of its characters! WinterWidow one-shot.

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He remembered her in pieces, just little snippets of what should have been memories. She was important to him, he knew that much, or at least she used to be.

" _You're late." The room was dark and silent but he wasn't shocked to find her there, sprawled out on his bed like there was no danger of a superior finding her. But he didn't really care, then, to be honest. His head was throbbing, his metal arm was still neutralized-immobile, and the electricity buzzed under his skin, burning him from the inside out. He managed to close the door behind him and lock it before she spoke again._

" _Was it bad this time?" He had to steady himself with a hand against the door just to drag in a breath, even though it made his stomach churn. There was no food to throw up, though. He shuddered when another jolt of electric aftershock stung down deep into his bones and lingered._

" _It's bad every time." She sighed and stood but he was too disoriented to follow her movements or listen for her breathing. His brain felt like it was imploding, splattering itself against the inside of his skull in protest. Everything felt a little too far away, even her, like he couldn't quite remember what he was doing there or why she was with him. Was she going to hurt him? Honestly he wouldn't have been surprised if the Red Room sent her after him, knowing that he would trust her just enough in that state to let her get close, but he wasn't sure that he cared. If she killed him, then she killed him._

" _James," He hissed at the name, at the way it made the floor beneath him twist and spin unpredictably. "James, I'm not going to hurt you." He didn't understand why she felt the need to say that-especially when she knew how little he cared if he died-but it clicked when her hand touched his arm. He flinched violently away from her but he didn't recoil with a strike. Right, that was her signal to him. That she wasn't a threat, that he didn't need to fight her even when the fire under his skin screamed at him to._

" _James." But he'd given up his grip on the wall when he'd flinched away and he suddenly swayed, unstable. She pushed him quickly back onto the cot before he could collapse. When he hit it, he was tense, and he was ready for the pain all over his body but he was not ready for the seering agony in his head. He screamed, muffling himself with his own hand, because his mind narrowed to that one pinpoint sensation and all he could comprehend was pain. Slowly, it began to lessen. As it faded, he forced himself to drag in oxygen and breathe it out because it would not have been the first time he managed to smother himself into unconsciousness but the oxygen made everything sharper. Like needles on his skin and fire beneath it. It was all he could do just to breathe._

" _James." That fucking name drilled into him but he couldn't tell if it was in a good way or a bad way. It made everything around him just a little clearer, but it made the pain more vivid too. He stayed still, though. If they saw even a hint of disobedience or discontent they would send him through another cycle of conditioning and he wasn't sure he could take any more torture today. His whole body throbbed and spasmed with the lingering electricity._

" _James." Again that damn name but this time it seemed more like a warning. He understood when a hand touched his cheek. He flinched away and tried to defend himself, tried to block or attack, but his metal arm stayed stiff and useless on the bed and moving his other hand sent a cascade of liquid fire down his spine. The hand stayed, gently cupping his cheek, as he struggled and then surrendered to the pain._

" _I'm not going to hurt you, James." Slowly, the hand brushed tears from his cheeks and ran its fingers through his sweat-soaked hair. He whimpered when it touched one of the bruises from Zola's machine, snapping back that sharp agony into his consciousness almost instantly, but just as quickly it was back to carding through his hair and thumbing his temples and he relaxed again. Over and over again, until he could breathe without fighting his own body for the oxygen. It was gradual but he was able to come back piece by piece and became aware of his surroundings-his room, the cot, and the hand gently soothing his throbbing headache. There was a female voice attached to it._

" _Natalya." Right, of course it was her. His voice knew it before he did but the moment the word fell from his lips he sank a little more willingly into her touch. It was Natalya. She'd watched them drag him off to the corner of the compound reserved for Zola and his team after the op in Berlin. He was obviously being punished but he couldn't remember what for anymore. But she'd seen, and she'd appeared here knowing that he would come stumbling in barely holding himself together like he always did. The hand in his hair didn't stop or slow, but he felt her smile. The name was some kind of signal-he could remember that-but what did it mean?_

" _Good to have you back." Right. It meant he knew her, knew she was there with him, and that he had enough strength back to talk to her. He hesitated, doubting that last part, but his voice didn't let him backtrack._

" _You shouldn't be here." It was true. Their superiors would catch on, even if she was a shadow, and he didn't want to see her suffer for it. He could handle the cycles on his own-he had for years-and he didn't want her to die just because she felt like she had to help him through it. She laughed, though._

" _No, I shouldn't. But what would you do without me?" He would be on the floor, for one, and probably stifling screams. If he hadn't smothered himself unconscious, he would have been shaking and spasming with leftover pain and probably dry heaving on the cement in some subconscious attempt to rid his body of the pain._

" _I'm good at what I do, James." Her thumbs gently pressed on his temples and, just for a moment, the screaming in his skull quieted enough to hear her breathing. It was horrible but she was right. She was so fucking good at everything she ever set her mind to and she'd set it on him a long time ago. She knew exactly how to ease the pain, exactly how to bring him back to her, and he could have survived it on his own but god the way her touch made his chest light with relief was so fucking addictive._

" _Besides, I like this. I like seeing you when they're done with you." He tried to smack her hand away at that but the flash of pain stopped him._

" _Why? Because I'm weak?" She smoothed his hair again, though, and ignored the tremors it sent through his body or the way he shivered at her touch._

" _No, because you're raw." He hissed something along the lines of bullshit but she just laughed and began to trace his face. "I'm serious. After whatever the hell they do to you, you're different. It's like the pain sears into you until all that's left is the barest bones of who you are. It's when they strip away all that training, all that emotionlessness, and you're raw. Because you honestly don't care. You're not afraid of dying, of getting hurt, or of me. Because what's more suffering when you've already lived through hell? I like that. It's when the parts of you they can never change show themselves. It's when I feel like I know you." He didn't have the energy to cry or to argue with her but those words did strike deep in his chest. No one had ever said that to him before-that they liked any part of him that wasn't the soldier part._

" _Natalya," He planned to argue, to tell her she was wrong or that she was imagining things, but he couldn't force the words out. All he managed was a soft, broken little: please? She let go of him and he felt like he was falling straight through the floor at her sudden absence but she was back almost immediately. Carefully, she lay down beside him and situated herself on the cot. With one hand, she gripped the back of his neck and guided him closer, placing his head on her chest and wrapping her other arm around the small of his back. Gently, she picked up and repositioned his metal arm. Even though he still couldn't move it, she seemed to know that the awkward angle caused him pain and he wasn't sure what to do with that-if he should be surprised, concerned, or touched-but he liked it._

 _She kept her hand securely on the back of his neck, knowing that it helped ease the sting of the vulnerable position, but let her fingers play with the hair at the nape of his neck. She rubbed her other hand gently up and down his back over the bruises he'd given himself fighting against his restraints. There were so many bruises… But she didn't press on them or aggravate the pain like she could have she just brushed over them, letting him feel the skin on skin contact without hurting him. Honestly, she had a gift with him. He didn't try to understand it, he just breathed while he could and focused on her heartbeat against his cheek. It wasn't until he sighed and completely surrendered, letting himself relax into her touch and accepting whatever she decided to give him, that she let her lips dip low beside his ear and she whispered._

" _Incinerate." And just like that, he collapsed into her. That was her word-their word-and he knew it deep in his subconscious as well as he knew the other activation words. And just like they had a deep, visceral reaction beneath his skin, so did hers. Except, while those set his body on fire and flung him back into all those cycles and sessions of agony, hers flowed like warm chocolate in his veins. It relaxed him, it eased the aching all over his body, and it made him slip easily into sleep. Her word, from her lips._

He thought he'd forgotten everything about the Red Room in between the cycles and the cryo freezes. He'd tried, at least, because some part of him instinctively said it was safer that way. Maybe he was trying to protect himself from some horrible memory? But that honestly didn't seem like him. A bigger part of him hinted that he was protecting someone else, forgetting them that so they couldn't be hurt because of him.

He was ripped from this thoughts and flung into the present by a hand on his skin. Instantly, he gripped the throat of the man and threw him across the room but the restraints and the other nurses were on him instantly. Tranq darts ricocheted off his metal arm and hit men one by one and he started to go for one of their guns because the panic was already setting in but a voice made him hesitate.

"I told you he would panic, Fury! Let me-" But the voice cut off and he shook it off. Why the hell had he hesitated? Regardless, he was back to the present and he ripped off the restraints and tore through nurses before taking cover from a rain of bullets but that panic seized at his chest and screamed he wouldn't be able to breathe until they were all dead. Until his handlers were pleased. He didn't even know who his handlers were, or if he had any currently, but it was so ingrained in him that he just fought. He started for the window but was stopped. The gunfire ceased. Another form, lithe and graceful, caught him from behind and clung to his back, gripping his hair. His head throbbed, already back to that room with Zola and the punishment, and he fought even harder because he needed to escape it before he collapsed, but the form refused. It was a woman, he realized.

" _James_!" He hesitated, recognizing that from somewhere, but it was enough of an opening for the woman to get an arm around his throat and her mouth beside his ear. " _Incinerate_!" Instantly, he stopped. Something deep inside him that he didn't completely understand flooded into his body and stopped him in his tracks. His chest felt light. Was he dying? The woman repeated the word in his ear, soft enough that only he could hear it, and he faltered where he stood because the world was suddenly spinning out of his control. He grabbed for something, anything, to hold himself up but the woman grabbed his hand before he could. He collapsed, falling to the floor in utter confusion, but she didn't let him hit it hard.

" _Incinerate_ ," she repeated, easing him down onto the tile as a strange kind of pain coursed through his veins. " _Incinerate_." It wasn't pain, exactly, not like his activation words sparked in him, but it was something. A kind of lingering, foreign buzz beneath his skin that felt more like pain leaving his body than entering it. What the hell? But then he was on the floor, flat on his back, and he felt someone lifting his head. The woman from before. She placed it gently in her lap and brushed the sweaty hair out of his eyes. Carefully, she ran her fingers through his hair and massaged his temples in easy, practiced little circles. Around him, he felt the entire world still and narrow to that one sensation. Because it let him breathe. It wasn't a superior pleased with his actions or the relief of completing a kill but it let him breathe, somehow, and it eased that nagging ache all over his body that he could never really shake.

"Romanoff, what the actual fuck did you just do?" He felt the woman sigh and tangle her hands in his hair a little more securely, like she was trying to hold onto him-as if they were going to drag her away. But he didn't protest, he just nuzzled into the touch. It was familiar somehow, and combined with his sudden oxygen he felt like he would die if he lost it.

"I tried to tell you," the woman explained softly, like she was trying not to disturb him. "We have history."

"You just deactivated the Winter Soldier." He felt her stiffen, and he tensed in response because clearly whatever was a threat to her was a threat to him too, but she just smoothed his hair again and whispered to him to relax in Russian.

"Yes, I did." He could feel the shock in the room. But, honestly? He didn't really care. Their politics and their drama weren't his concern but he had to see the face of the woman who did this to him so effortlessly. He pried his eyes open, squinting against the light, but managed. And when he saw that rose-red hair, that porcelain skin, and those emerald eyes, he just had to smile. Because he knew her.

" _Natalya_." There was no question behind it, no uncertainty, but his voice made her and the men in the room jump. She smiled down at him, rubbing a bit of dried blood from his cheek. The men in the room gaped, but he couldn't tell if it was at her or at him and she was ignoring them so he did too.

" _It's okay, you're safe. You know me. I've got you, they won't hurt you._ " He nodded that he understood and closed his eyes again but that didn't stop him from listening to their conversation.

"Romanoff, what the hell was that?" She sighed. Another voice, farther away and less angry, stepped up.

"Nat?" It was English, but the nickname told him they were close. "Nat, what's going on?" Again, he felt her sigh but this time felt more regretful rather than defensive. That voice wasn't a threat, apparently.

"He remembers me. We have history, Steve, and it's a long story but the bullet hole in his leg is bleeding again and he's not going to let any of you touch it. I'll explain later, but right now I need my med kit." The people in the room shuffled, either protesting or complying with her demands, but he was distracted. The bullet hole in his leg? He couldn't remember getting shot and he didn't feel any pain beside the slight, fading ache in his head. If he focused really hard he could feel a warm liquid on his right thigh but surely that couldn't be blood, right?

" _Talya?"_ She must have heard the worry and the question in his voice because, while he heard he sort through a bag beside his head, she paused to place a hand on his forehead.

" _It's okay, breathe. You're heavily medicated right now. The adrenaline mixed with the meds and the trigger word have put your body under a lot of strain, don't worry if you can't feel it right now. Just trust me that it's bleeding, and that I'm going to fix it, okay?"_ He nodded without even thinking. Natalya would fix it. He was vaguely aware of her moving, straining to reach his leg without dropping his head, but he was in and out of focus enough as it was. As long as he could still feel her heartbeat beneath her skin, he didn't really care. Natalya would fix it, just like she always fixed him.

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Thanks for reading! Please please please review!


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